Spencer, the figurehead of the so-called “alt-right,” was notoriously caught on video after the November election bellowing “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” as his supporters gave Nazi-style salutes.

An email obtained by The Electronic Intifada confirms that Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, worked directly with Spencer when the pair were at Duke University a decade ago.

In October, Spencer toldMother Jones magazine that he had worked with Miller to organize a debate on immigration sponsored by the Duke Conservative Union.

Miller sought to undercut the story at the time, asserting that Spencer’s “claims are 100 percent false.”

But Peter Laufer, now a senior professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, sent The Electronic Intifada a 26 March 2007 email from Spencer that corroborates Spencer’s personal connection to Miller.

Laufer was invited by the Duke Conservative Union to debate Peter Brimelow, an anti-immigrant activist who runs a website that frequently publishes work by white supremacists and anti-Semites.

Spencer’s email was addressed to Laufer and Brimelow and contained logistical details about their campus visit for the debate.

“Dear Peters,” Spencer began, “Your day will be free tomorrow until 5:00 pm. At that time, I’ll pick up both of you at the entrance to the Washington Duke Inn.”

The email specified plans for Laufer and Brimelow and their wives to be taken to dinner at Vin Rouge, a restaurant in Durham, North Carolina.

Then, Spencer wrote: “At 6:45 Stephen Miller and I will leave early to do more set-up.”

Clearly, the two ultra-conservative Duke students worked closely together to make the immigration debate happen.

“Aryan homeland”

Spencer toldMother Jones in October: “It’s funny no one’s picked up on the Stephen Miller connection.”

He added, “I knew him very well when I was at Duke. But I am kind of glad no one’s talked about this because I don’t want to harm Trump.”

Though he denies being a neo-Nazi, Spencer’s ideas bear a clear resemblance to Nazi ideology. Spencer advocates for “an Aryan homeland for the supposedly dispossessed white race and calls for ‘peaceful ethnic cleansing’ to halt the ‘deconstruction’ of European culture,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks right-wing hate groups.

“[Stephen] Miller did not respond on the record to specific questions about his activities with the [Duke Conservative Union] or his views on immigration, but he denied being close to Spencer,” Mother Jones reported in October.

“I have absolutely no relationship with Mr. Spencer,” Miller wrote in an email to Mother Jones. “I completely repudiate his views, and his claims are 100 percent false.’”

But the decade-old email located by Laufer lends considerable credence to Spencer’s claims of a close relationship to Miller.

Moreover, former members of the Duke Conservative Union recently recollected that Spencer and Miller did work together on the immigration debate. One former student, Bill English, told the Duke campus newspaper The Chronicle that he and Spencer “periodically played advisory roles” in the organization.

Author of Muslim ban

Miller’s connection to white supremacists such as Spencer and Brimelow becomes all the more important in light of Miller’s central role in authoring Friday’s executive order barring entry to nationals of seven countries, which many are calling a “Muslim ban.”

Trump had promised a ban on Muslims entering the US during his campaign.

Bannon previously headed Breitbart News, which was, in his words, “the platform for the alt-right” – the euphemism Spencer gives to his white supremacist movement.

Miller embodies the affinity between white supremacism and support for Israel’s ongoing dispossession of Palestinians.

As The Electronic Intifada reported last month, Miller traveled to Hebron and other parts of the occupied West Bank with Rabbi Ben Packer, an unabashedly racist settler and supporter of notorious anti-Palestinian Meir Kahane.

Packer styles himself the former “rabbi on campus” at Duke, though the university has denied he ever had any formal position.

“Stephen Miller is not just my friend, he’s not just our friend, he is us,” Packer wrote for the extremist Israeli website Arutz Sheva. “He is part of that new proud generation, no longer relegated to the fringe. His appointment is spectacular news for the Jewish people and he should be blessed with everything to do great things.”

In high school, Miller was already dismissive of the genocide of Native Americans, writing sarcastically, “we could have lived with the Indians, learning how to finger paint and make tepees, excusing their scalping of frontiersmen as part of their culture.”

His senior position in the White House is bad enough, but it also puts President Trump just one degree of separation away from Richard Spencer, the most notorious white supremacist of 2017.

Comments

Anyone who studied in detail the rise of Nazism in Germany and the perfidious sneak into the lives of Germans, with or without their consent, using propaganda, education, the legal system, bureaucracy, in collaboration with the most undemocratic elements in society, as well as thugs, must be greatly alarmed by this relentless evidence of rising fascism in America. Trump and Co. have obviously been planning these moves for a long time and are grouping for the kill - the death of democracy as we know it.

Exactly.
My Prussian Jewish Grandfather taught me about the rise of the Third Reich, and yes it was a carefully planned slide from a civilized society into the Nazi State. Many small legal changes, trucks of Brownshirts moved about the country to make them seem common, with beatings of Socialists, Jews, Hitler's Opponents, etc. Germany didn't just turn into a Monstrosity, the evil took careful planning.
The main reason for the concentration camps was not to commit genocide just for the sake of genocide, it was to use the fear of being treated like the Jews, Roma, etc. to control the German Population. However it didn't work, this just convinced the German Resistance to work individually or in very small groups, due to the risks of torture. However the German resistance was actually bigger than the French Resistance.

David Hollenshead - thanks. I have become increasingly interested in the resistance in Germany as we hear so little about it. Not to whitewash, but to understand more about the mechanisms of fear and indoctrination, in particular to show how vital resistance was and is - and where the urge to resist injustice stems from.
I highly recommend the diaries of Victor Klemperer (I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 and I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941), which reveal the day to day changes in society and the way Germans behaved in hundreds of different situations. Klemperer was a Jewish professor in Dresden, his wife non-Jewish. They were also harshly critical of Zionism and their position reflects that of many European Jews at the time - ignored or forgotten today.

Interesting,
I've heard a number of examples of individual saboteurs, Germans & Slave Laborers alike.
The best physical example of this was three PPK Handguns my Grandfather took as Souvenirs from an SS Colonel, who had taken the "gentleman's way out".
The one made before the war worked fine, but was worn out, as it's owner was in the SS after all.
The one made during the early part of the war was inaccurate and sloppy.
The one made in the late war would jam after firing a few rounds, barely used.
There are many examples, like the Messerschmitt twin engine jets, which would have been invincible if the slave laborers had not included major fuel leaks.
Or the Simplified Steam Locomotive of the late war effort, which would have a few worthless coins blocking the grease passages.
The catch with the German Resistance, is that it was mostly done by individuals like my Grandfather's Cousin, who ended up in the German Army after a Catholic Priest helped him fake being a Christian.
And many of these people never publicly took credit, as they often made a point of appearing to strongly support Germany & the Nazi Party, while actually fucking things up when no one was looking.

Michael F. Brown is an independent journalist. His work and views have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, TheNation.com, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The News & Observer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post and elsewhere.